


Don't promise me Heaven

by Moonlessnite



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cruelty, Explicit Language, Heartbreak, Heavy Angst, M/M, Pain, Sad, Sad Ending, Season/Series 13, Season/Series 13 Spoilers, Verbal Fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 23:27:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14604057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonlessnite/pseuds/Moonlessnite
Summary: This takes place during S13.E21 Beat the Devil.What happened between Sam, Dean and Castiel finding Gabriel and Rowena together and the scene where they capture Lucifer?What would Sam say to Gabriel?This is my, super angsty, plot bunny.EDIT 5/15/2018I am finishing a short story that will occur between Exodus and the Season 13 finale. Read this one first as I will be using references from this story in the continuation.I will edit again when it's posted with a link.EDIT 5/16/2018The continuation is posted. "And deliver me hell"https://archiveofourown.org/works/14680101/chapters/33917076





	Don't promise me Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy.....or don't. If you like pain, you'll love this. :)

Sam was stunned. 

 

Literally stunned silent. He can't even form words. Could barely think in coherent sentences. 

 

_ Gabe and Rowena?! _

 

The hunter’s breath seems to freeze in his lungs. Time slows and stretches like taffy. A sickening feeling, like the chill of icy water, starts at the top of his head and rushes like a river to his feet. Dimly, he’s aware that he’s gaping dumbly at the two supernatural beings in front of him, but he can’t be bothered to care. Both are disheveled. Hair wild. Clothing partially out of place. Gasping for breath from the obvious exertion. 

 

_ Gabriel and Rowena had sex.  _

 

If the other clues hadn't made it blindingly obvious, then the mark of a feminine kiss, smeared down the archangel’s neck in lipstick, was like a neon sign. 

 

A red neon sign. That perfectly matched the shade the three hundred year old witch was partially still wearing. 

 

Not like there was another person in the bunker it could belong to. 

 

The pain hits him next. Like a knife to the chest. A sharp, serrated blade that stabs deep and twists. Gouges. Decimates. Sam tries to breath and finds that every inhalation is painful. Every exhalation is like fire coming up from his belly. 

 

_ Gabriel…… while I was making plans to save my mom…..his nephew…..having to fucking face down with Lucifer…….Gabe was screwing  _ **_Rowena_ ** _. _

 

His mind keeps replaying those words like a litany. _ Gabe and Rowena. Together _ . A painful, gut-wrenching repetition that makes him want to vomit. 

 

The archangel’s whiskey colored gaze keeps bouncing back and forth between the three men. Always coming back to Sam. The hunter hears Gabriel speak but the words don't process. He can't make sense of them. All he hears is the awkwardness in the tone. The embarrassment in the pitch of his reply. 

 

The witch isn't any better. All fumbling hands and long, batting eyelashes. Sam doesn't care about her though. His wide eyes never leave Gabriel. 

 

Dean is frozen in front of him. Although he can't see his brothers face, he can read the shock in the set of his shoulders. The confusion in the fidgeting of his arms. Castiel is on the other side of Dean, his eyes fixed on the floor. Sam has never seen Castiel mortified but this has got to be pretty close. 

 

“Sam has a plan.” Hearing Dean blurt that out seems to slam Sam's reality back into place with an audible pop. The change in perception is almost painful and it's another few seconds before he can make himself move. 

 

“You do?”, comes the thickly accented reply. Rowena is brushing back her long red hair. Delicate hands twining the locks together on the right side of her neck. Sam barely spares her a glance before fixing his gaze, once again, on the archangel. 

 

That's a mistake. 

 

Now that his brain seems to be moving normal speed, he notices the partially open collar of Gabriel’s shirt. The book he's holding over his groin. A shield that won't quite lay flat against his body.  _ Probably wasn’t able to zip up fast enough,  _ Sam thinks with a vehemence that surprises even him. 

 

“Yea Samshine. You got something to solve our collective problem?” The nickname makes Sam flinch. The archangel’s voice is almost back to normal. Slightly higher pitched than usual. The hunter can hear the difference without even trying, and hates himself for noticing. 

 

The eyes looking back at the him are wide with the faux innocence shining from the other man's expression. A lock of dirty blond hair is falling over his forehead and Gabriel knocks it back with a breathe blown upward. He’s still fidgeting. Toes tapping. Weight shifting from leg to leg. The hand on the book moving with a barely noticeable twitch. 

 

Sam can’t deal with this. 

 

The hunter drops his head, making a pretense of brushing his long hair from his face. When he opens his mouth to finally speak, nothing comes out at first. He sees Dean glance back at him. Eyebrows raised. 

 

Not wanting to alert his brother to his inner turmoil, Sam tries again. Takes a deep breath and, taking a page from Castiel's book, addresses his answer to the floor.“Yeah uh….since you’re not uh, up to full strength, we need archangel Grace from somewhere.” Notices his voice is gruff and clears his throat. “We can use Lucifer but that still only buys us twenty four hours.” 

 

Sam is trying to figure out how to explain the next steps of his plan, when his vision locks on a small tile on the floor that has a chip missing. Such a silly thing to notice. He wonders when it went missing. How it broke. There’d been so many horrific events in the bunker. From the death of Kevin Tran at his hands, the Mark pushing Dean to murder an innocent, finding out Lucifer was inhabiting Castiel, to the….his mind stumbles as it comes back to the situation going on right now.  

That’s when he realizes he’s trying to distance himself from what’s happening in front of him. Not just the two now-lovers, but the thought of being in reach of Lucifer again. From the fear settling in his stomach like a battery acid. Away from the rage that’s rising like a stoked coal in his chest. 

 

_ Stop being dramatic. It was one kiss. _

 

The sharp inner voice is like a slap to the face and Sam gasps in a breath, causing him to cough. He straightens his shoulders and continues in a more normal voice. “If we can trap Lucifer, we can drain his Grace and keep the portal open for longer.” His head comes up and he directs his gaze to the empty space between the witch and the archangel. “Give us a chance to get boots on the ground and get a location, since we can't control where the portal will open.”

 

Sam starts slightly when Dean’s gruff voice speaks up. He's grateful for the excuse to look away. “Mom and Jack may have moved on from where they were. We don't know how exactly time operates over there to how it passes here. We collar the Devil, use him like a gas supply to keep the portal open, and viola.” His brother waves his hands elaborately. “We have the time to find Mom and Jack and get them out.” 

 

Rowena pipes up, growing ire in her voice. “And I suppose I’m going to be the one responsible for holding that beast and waiting here while the brave men folk bring back mother and the wee lad?” The sarcasm is practically thick enough to cut with a knife. Under normal circumstances, Sam would probably be amused. 

 

“If you don’t want to make yourself useful, why are you here?” Sam winces internally at the snarl in his own voice. Dean gives him another look, this one with a questioning frown. Castiel finally looks up and locks his steady gaze on the taller hunter. 

 

The witch doesn’t seem to find anything unusual about his tone or his response. She simply tosses her hands up into the air with a long suffering sigh. “Very well,  _ Samuel,”  _ she drawls, “I’ll prepare what we need.” With a flourish, she stalks over to the chair where a coat was discarded in her and the archangels torrid passion. 

 

A last glance of her glacial green eyes directed their way, and she’s off towards the recesses of the multiple libraries held in the bunker. The hunter glances at Gabriel and notices the other man follow Rowena with his eyes as she leaves. His heart lurches.

 

_ Enough Sam! _

 

Dean smacks his hands together and rubs them briskly. “O...Kay, then.” He looks over at Gabriel and eyes him up and down with a growing smirk. “So, lover boy. You think you got enough left in the Grace tank to disguise that ugly mug and lure your bro in?” His brother glances over at Castiel with a grin and bobs his eyebrows playfully. 

 

The angel rolls his eyes, a no nonsense look clenching his strong jaw. “He'll be fine, Dean,” he rumbles in what Sam has come to know as his I've-had-enough-of-your-shit-human voice. “This is simple magic. He has more than enough Grace to pull it off. Right, Gabriel?.” 

 

All three men direct their gaze back to the archangel. 

 

Gabriel only has eyes for Sam. 

 

The hunter is immediately caught. Trapped in the intense, whiskey colored gaze. The archangel’s eyes are huge in a face that's thinner than it was so many years ago. A face that wore a now equal set of lines born from both laughter and agony. The offending shield was now held down by his side. Lips partially open and a stricken expression growing on his face. 

 

The stare down only lasts the space of a heartbeat, but Sam feels loss arch across the space between them. 

 

In a blink, Gabriel is ducking his head on the pretense of dropping the book he'd been holding to the table. The thick volume lands with an echoing bang. When he looks back up, he addresses Dean with a sardonic smirk that doesn't quite meet his eyes. “Cassie is correctamundo. Piece of very delicious,  payback-is-a-bitch cake.” The smile turns sharp with predatory intent. The Tricksters smile. 

 

“Fine. Let's do this.” Dean turns around and calls for the angel. “Come on Cas. We're gonna need some more fire power.” His long strides take him through the doorway they entered through. The angel is close on his heels. Sam watches them go, getting a quick flash of blue eyes before the other man is gone from sight. 

 

Leaving him alone with Gabriel.

 

His stomach cramps, so he does what he always does. What gets him through everything. He prepares for another war.

 

Without a word, he starts towards his room, not sparing a look at the archangel. The other man's voice sounds from behind him, “Sam! Wait!”, and he hears quick footsteps chasing him. 

 

He doesn't stop, but unfortunately for him, that doesn't stop a determined archangel. 

 

Gabriel jumps in front of him, hands held out before him in the universal signal to wait. “Hey Sammich, where are you running off to?” There's a lopsided grin on his face. The one Sam always liked because it made him look relaxed. Approachable. 

 

Looking down at the shorter man, the hunter finally sees it for what it is. A mask. 

 

Beneath the unsure-but-game smile sparkling in his golden eyes, is a swirl of emotion that tugs at Sam’s heart. Or it would have, if not for the events of the last few minutes. 

 

Of last night. 

 

Sam had gotten  _ really _ drunk the night before. 

 

He doesn’t do it often. Plus, he’s getting older. He can’t hold his liquor the way he could several years ago. The idea to use Lucifer had already been kicking around in the hunter’s head, even before Gabriel’s grace had fizzled out and left them with no other options. The thought of the twenty four hour time limit had been ticking like a clock in the recesses of his brain. A fatal flaw with their plan. 

 

When the archangel had found him in the TV room, sans TV since the Scooby Doo fiasco, Sam had offered the whiskey bottle with a crooked smile and eyes that weren’t quite focused. The hunter had been fairly toasted. After all, the thought of facing down with what was, quite possibly, his biggest fear definitely warranted a night off for his brain cells. 

 

The two had talked long into the night. About everything and anything. Sam getting drunker. Gabriel had procured another bottle from somewhere. Got him talking about before. His childhood. The Apocalypse. 

 

About Lucifer. 

 

Sam had spilled his story to Gabriel. Much more emotionally and incoherently than he normally would have. The Devil's real face. The torture. The recurring nightmares. 

 

The archangel had spoken about his time with Asmodeus. Hesitantly at first. Then more openly. The torment. Unending pain. Constant weakness and the certainty that the demon was going to kill him one of the incalculable number of times he lost his temper and beat the archangel senseless. 

 

They'd shared. Bonded. Tried to heal each other. Give comfort. Sam felt something he hadn't felt since Eileen was murdered. 

 

No. Even longer.

 

Since Jess was alive.

 

As pain, driven by his own fear and compassion for Gabriel's agony, welled in his chest….he'd seen something. Felt a bond to this being who’d tormented him. Tested him. Drove him to the brink of madness. 

 

Who taught him. Pushed him. Helped him find the strength within himself to stop the end of the world. 

 

As the archangel's words had sputtered to a stop, Sam had gently cupped his face. Brushed away a fallen tear from his cheek. Lost himself in the shimmering eyes. So terrified. So desperate for love and forgiveness. For hope. 

 

So Sam had kissed him. 

 

A simple action. Two sets of closed lips pressed together. His nose brushing against Gabriel's cheek. The soft whimper he wasn't sure which one of them issued. 

 

Something that was so innocent, with a world of feeling behind it. 

 

They'd stayed like that for several heartbeats. Tears had welled up behind Sam's closed eyes as he drowned in emotion. His. Gabriel’s. He wasn't sure where one started and the other began. 

 

For the first time in decades, he felt safe. For just a moment. 

 

When Sam leaned back and opened his eyes, shock at what he had just done speared through him like lightning. He immediately dropped his hand and averted his gaze. His mouth opening and stammering slurred apologies as he'd lurched unsteadily off the couch. 

 

Gabriel had tried to reach out. Attempted to stop him, but Sam had shied away like a spooked animal. Fled to his room where he'd cried himself to sleep in a drunken mess of swirling emotion compounded by too much alcohol. 

 

He'd avoided being alone with the archangel all day. Wouldn't meet his eyes. 

 

Until now. 

 

Now, as he looks into Gabriel’s heart-stopping eyes, he feels emptiness. Alone. Hopelessness over another crisis. The weight of an unending line of horrible choices that is his life. 

 

His voice is like an arctic wind. “What do you want Gabriel?” Feels a fierce satisfaction as he watches the archangel flinch at his tone. 

 

“I just….”, the other man can't hold his gaze and looks down at the floor. “I thought we could talk, you know…..”

 

“About what?”, Sam interrupts. He can feel the fire gathering in his eyes. Muscle jumping in his jaw as he grinds his teeth. A twitching, almost electric urge to use his fists.  The anger he fears so much in himself. 

 

Gabriel's eyes snap up, incredulity making his mouth drop open before he can form words. “Well, your plan for starters.” The other man props his hands on his hips, anger starting to darken his whiskey colored gaze. 

 

The smile that stretches across Sam's face is hard. Humorless. An expression cut with the same figurative blade he had just pulled from his chest. “You're the Trickster, right? Fooling people, playing with them. It's what you do. I trust you'll figure it out.” The hunter starts to step around him. “I have to get ready.”

 

Sam feels a small hand clench around his arm and spin him, with unexpected strength, back to face the archangel. He yanks his arm away as rage fires through him. Chokes it off as he straightens his shoulders and uses his considerable height difference to look down his nose at the other man. 

 

The look in Gabriel's gaze almost stops him. Barely cracks the wall he’s thrown up around himself to block out the pain so he can do do what needs to be done. Although the archangel’s expression is one of startled indignation, the other man seems to have holes in his own armor. The large eyes looking up at him are tinted dark with pain. None of it is evident in his piqued reply. 

 

“Well by all means, throw me to the fucking wolves, why don’t you? Facing down with the Brother who tried to **_kill me_** should be nothing, right?” A sharp finger pokes the hunter in the chest. Hard. “After all, who gives a fuck what happens to me? I’m just a weapon you and your brother can use to get your precious family back!” The last sentence is a snarl, brimming over with Gabriel’s self-loathing and contempt for himself. A hint of the fear that he really isn’t worth anything, to anyone. Begging Sam to deny it.

 

In their encounters before, up till last night or even this morning, Sam would have caved. Offered what comfort and encouragement he could. Worked as he had before with the archangel. Attempted to repair the broken, beaten-down man before him. The Winchesters wanted his help. More than that though, Gabriel needed to know someone valued him. 

 

That Sam needed him.

 

_ I can’t though. I just….can’t. Can’t deal with anymore pain. I’m barely surviving as it is. _

 

The hunter crosses his arms across his chest, flexing his biceps. His next words are like an arrow fired straight at his target as he drops his eyes briefly to the archangels groin. His intention to share pain for pain making him strike out with lethal accuracy. “If you're so anxious to do something, go talk to Rowena. I’m sure she at least has a use for you.” 

 

Sam has the hollow, nasty satisfaction of seeing those words rock Gabriel back on his heels like a physical blow. For an instant, he can practically feel the agony that rips through the archangel at the confirmation of his worst fears. That he’s nothing more than a tool. A pretty toy. An amusement that has no value to anyone beyond how he can be used. That the hunters previous pleas were all lies to get the other man to do what he wanted.

 

The golden eyes looking into his are drowning in pain. The mouth that Sam had listened to reassure him, that had talked him through his pain, the lips he had kissed, tremble for just a moment. Gabriel takes a deep, shaky breath and lets it out with a shudder. For a heartbeat, he looks like he might cry.

 

Sam takes a breath to...do what? Apologize? Part of him can’t believe that just came out of his mouth. How he’d struck with the deliberate intention of making the other man bleed. That he enjoyed it. Reveled in it, even for the short period of time. This wasn’t like him. 

 

_ Fuck. What have I done? _

 

As doubts start creeping in on the hunter, from one blink to the next, the archangel’s expression goes cold. A flash of blue flares in his eyes, and when it fades, there’s nothing there. No emotion. The joking, mercurial personality is just gone, leaving darkness in its wake. 

 

A smile cuts across Gabriel's face. An expression so cold that Sam almost takes a step back. Remembers abruptly he’s with a creature with enough power to obliterate him where he stands, no matter how harmless he sometimes looks. 

 

The archangel licks his lips and tosses his hair back in a sultry, theatrical manner. Gives a mocking wink that is even more devastating due to the lack of real emotion behind it. “At least I’m good at something, right?” His remorseless gaze, turned a hard yellow, sweeps Sam slowly from his head, all the way to his feet, and back again. He meets the hunters eyes. A terrifying, hungry look sweeps across his face as he steps up to Sam in open challenge. Voice like the hiss of a snake as he whispers, “All that time with the porn stars helped me bone up on my already considerable skills. Might as well help Rowena take the edge off in case Lucifer kills us all, right?” 

 

With that strike, he disappears, leaving Sam alone in the anteroom. 

 

The hunter bows his shoulders, raking both hands through his hair as he curses violently under his breath. Curses Gabriel. Curses their situation. Most of all, curses himself. 

 

He spins on his heel and heads towards his room to start packing. Lets the rage flow through him and fire his movements. His determination. Block out the grief that is threatening to pull him down and drown him. 

 

As he stuffs his pack hastily, he puts his mind to the business at hand. Getting his mom out. Getting Jack back. Ending the Devil, once and for all. Finding a way to power up Heaven. All of the things that could go wrong with this most recent, desperate idea. 

 

“You ready?” Dean's voice in the doorway barely registers, but he glances up and gives his brother a nod. Watches the older hunter eye him carefully and ask in a cautious tone. “You ok?”

 

“Yea Dean. Just ready to get this over with.” Sam forces his voice to be upbeat, but serious. He can almost convince himself he’s fine if he just keeps moving. Keeps doing what he was brought up to do. 

 

_ The monsters are just bigger now.  _

 

For just a second, he flashes back on his conversation with Gabriel. Some voice inside him wonders if he wasn’t becoming the monster he’d always feared he would be. Just for a second. 

 

“Let’s do this. Time to bring the rest of our family home.” His brother nods at him, once. A hint of concern in his green-eyed gaze before he turns to leave.

 

Sam returns the nod and hefts his pack, following his brother from the room. 

 

With a deep breath, he prepares to join his brother, once again, on a journey to oblivion. Not quite caring if he makes it out. 

 

If his heart was breaking, well, it was no less than he deserved. 

**Author's Note:**

> So I blame the fact that I keep seeing posts, plot ideas and photo sets about Sams reaction to Gabriel.
> 
> This went far more dramatic than I intended, but I've learned not to argue with the Muse when she's screaming in my ear.


End file.
